Pope Tawadros II has realised that the revolutionary spirit in Egypt cannot be suppressed. His answer has been to create a system in the Coptic Orthodox Church that is more open minded and accessible than it has ever been in nearly two thousand years of existence, says Nelly van Doorn-Harder.
Instead of sanitizing the Muslim right as a way of fighting racism in the North, Meredith Tax argues that the left should develop a strategy of solidarity with democrats, trade unionists, religious and sexual minorities, and feminists struggling in the Global South against both neo-liberalism and
The eruption of protests, violence and civil disobedience in Egypt this month is a replay of the scene in 2011 before the status quo was ruptured, but the current regime’s attacks on women and religious minorities in order to quell opposition is more pervasive than anything seen before, argues Mar
In Sweden, women establish religious authority as they are appointed leaders in Muslim youth associations. Their commitment is intertwined with identity politics, leading their activism out beyond the mosques and classrooms and into civic centres and television studios
Whilst women are struggling to gain access to parliament in Morocco, in the religious field they are gaining ground as a legitimate authority. Whether female religious authorities will contribute to the empowerment of Moroccan women in the long-term remains to be seen.
The social movements of the 60s gave American women the skills to name and address the injuries they faced in their own lives, and led to a global women’s movement that is now facing a violent backlash. We need to know this history in order to fight for women’s rights today
Human rights instruments have enabled women’s movements to access a normative and analytic framework for fighting discrimination, and rights discourses have been deployed to legitimise women’s demands for social and economic rights, political representation and well-being. Maxine Molyneux spoke to
إن وضع حلقات العنف ضد المرأة الذي تلا الربيع العربي لإظهارها كمثال روتيني للمجتمع الذكوري وحلفائه ممن لا يثقون بالمرأة في مجتمعات بعينها قد يقي أصحاب السلطة من مزيد من التقصي والتدقيق بشكل غير متعمد. لم يعد الرهان على المرأة وجسمها بل على الجسم السياسي بحد ذاته. هكذا تجادل دينيز كانديوتي
The problem with the use of 'zero tolerance' in public discourse is that it makes for good populist politics and rhetoric which generally translates into regressive and ill-informed public policy, especially in the area of criminal justice, says Vijay Nagaraj.
Putting episodes of post-Arab spring violence against women down to a routine manifestation of patriarchy and its allied misogyny in the societies concerned may unwittingly shield power-holders from more searching scrutiny. What is at stake is no longer just women and their bodies but the body pol
Were Ram Singh and his cohort simply claiming a notion of masculinity promoted every day by their role models in politics, business and the media? Ruchira Gupta writes of the steady creeping of a rape culture into the fabric of India, and what needs to be done to counter the idea that women are co
Fears that Egypt’s constitution will be used to inhibit freedoms and enhance the powers of the Islamists in power have already proven to be well founded. The new constitution makes the entire governance system subject to the strictures of Islamic jurisprudence, argues Mariz Tadros